WP_QUERY Get posts by category and similar name (Like)

Question

I have a small problem with WP_Query. I want to get the posts filtered by category and with similar project name (like query), so I'm trying this code:

$args=array(
'post_type' => 'post',
'post_status' => 'publish',
'category_name' => 'projects',
'name__like' => 'Proj');

$my_query = null;
$my_query = new WP_Query($args);
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
    echo '<div class="Entradas">'.get_the_title().'</div>';
endwhile;
}
wp_reset_query();

Actually it displays the projects filtered by category, but the name__like is not working.

Any suggestions to fix this?

Answer 1

Revisited and simplified answer:

You can try:

$args = [
    'post_type'     => 'post',
    'post_status'   => 'publish',
    'category_name' => 'projects',
    '_name__like'   => 'proj*'         // <-- our new input argument!
];
$my_query = new WP_Query( $args );

where we've created the _name__like input argument. It supports wildcard *, for example:

    '_name__like'    => 'a*b*'        

Note that draft posts don't have post_name set before they're published.

We use the following plugin to support this new argument:

/**
 * Plugin Name: Support for post name like in WP_Query
 * Description: Uses the _name__like argument and supports wildcard *.
 * Plugin URI:  http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/136758/26350
 * Author:      Birgir Erlendsson (birgire)
 * Version:     0.0.1
 */

add_filter( 'posts_where', function( $where, $q )
{
    if( $name__like = $q->get( '_name__like' ) )
    {
        global $wpdb;
        $where .= $wpdb->prepare(
            " AND {$wpdb->posts}.post_name LIKE %s ",
            str_replace( 
                array( '**', '*' ), 
                array( '*',  '%' ),  
                mb_strtolower( $wpdb->esc_like( $name__like ) ) 
            )
        );
    }       
    return $where;
}, 10, 2 );

Answer 2

I did not use any name__like or filters. This is how I finally made it:

$categoria = $_GET['categoria'];
$filtro = $_GET['texto'];

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'tax_query' => array(
        'relation' => 'AND',
        array(
            'taxonomy' => 'category',
            'field' => 'slug',
            'terms' => $categoria
        )
    )
);

$my_query = null;
$my_query = new WP_Query( $args );

if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
$postid = $_GET['id'];
$content_post = get_post($postid);
$contenido= $content_post->post_content;
$titulo= $content_post->post_title;

if($filtro!="") {
    $tit=strtoupper($titulo); 
    $fil=strtoupper($filtro); 
    $con=strtoupper($contenido);
    if ((strpos($tit,$fil) !== false) || (strpos($con,$fil) !== false) ) {
        echo '<div class="Entradas">'.$titulo.'</div>';
    }
} else {
    echo '<div class="Entradas">'.$titulo.'</div>';
}
endwhile;
echo '[|Contador|]'.$my_query->post_count;
    //this is for displaying the number of posts
 }
wp_reset_query();

So I get the posts and I check if their title or content contains the value I´m looking for, Im sure there must be solutions using WP_Query options but I prefer this way.